The News Feed of the Facebook has long been the subject of intense debate about Meta's major problems, often causing complaints from users.
However, a new lawsuit that has been filed may give the opportunity to the users Facebook to enjoy a social network browsing experience with a significantly different streaming format. Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute has taken legal action against Meta on behalf of a researcher to create and make available a browser extension that would allow users to "turn off" their feeds.
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The extension, created by researcher and University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Ethan Zuckerman, suggests a more controlled Facebook experience. Called Unfollow Everything 2.0, the tool allows users to unfollow friends, groups and pages, stopping the endless scrolling of posts in their news feed. "This enables users to redefine the Experience on the platform, choosing to re-follow only those pages and groups that they really want," the company says. This marks a return to meaningful use of the platform, free from the content crowd. In 2022, Meta moved to change the name of the News Feed to "Feed".
Zuckerman is not the pioneer in developing such a tool. He was inspired by a similar program, also known as "Unfollow Everything", which appeared in 2021. Facebook proceeded to sue the British creator of that extension and permanently blocked his account. Zuckerman is seeking to avoid a similar outcome by taking legal action. His lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, asks the court "to affirm that the Section 230 Act offers protection to the development of tools intended to empower users to have more controlled Accessed at in their experiences within social networking platforms".
This case could be an important test for section 230 of the 1996 Online Decency Act, which mainly protects online platforms from legal liability for the actions of their users. However, unlike previous cases considered by the Supreme Court, the case on Zuckerman focuses on a different provision. This protects the creators of third-party tools that allow users to select and sort the content they view online, including possibility blocking content deemed inappropriate.
A spokesman for Meta refrained from commenting on the recent lawsuit. Η company has repeatedly applied harsh strategies towards researchers. An example of this approach was the closure of the Application "Unfollow Everything" and the deactivation of Facebook accounts by a group of NYU researchers who were looking at targeting political ads in 2021. This practice led some researchers to move into "data donation" programs, inviting volunteers to provide their browsing data for scientific research.
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If put in Traffic, the new browser extension from Zuckerman will include an innovative data donation feature, offering users the ability to contribute "anonymous data about their Facebook usage". This data will be used for research purposes, with the aim of understanding and Improvement of the results of Facebook feeds.
Source: engadget.com
